User Reviews

"Brother, Can You Spare an Act?" features Timmie Rogers as Smiley Rogers, the very first black comic to avoid blackface and wear a tuxedo on stage, a great influence on later brethren like Redd Foxx, Bill Cosby, and Richard Pryor in that he even used his real name. We get right into it at the start (his catchphrase: "oh yeah!"), he and Redd singing a duet of "Tis Autumn" with guitar, setting the stage for the second appearance of Fred's sister Frances (Mary Alice, last of two) and white brother-in-law Rodney (Allen Drake, second of three). Frances wants her brother to hire Rodney to manage the Sanford Arms so they can live there rent free, but he has other ideas, booking his act in a local theater trying to bring back vaudeville-style live performers. Smiley and Fred duet on "Lulu's Back in Town," while Demond Wilson tap dances as he previously did in "The Stand-In." Nancy Kulp's May Hopkins (second of five) volunteers to represent the Sanford Arms tenants, their complaints falling on deaf ears: "well I never!" "I can believe that!"